headless chickens and the like

The week after returning from Grand Turk has been frantic. Monday's round of phone calls revealed, finally, that they did want 30 toilets sent over to be used for the tent city (turns out this is just a feeding station rather than for people to sleep at too), so that day was very busy loading up the toilets and getting them to the dock for shipping. The crucial deal here was that we would not have to pay for shipping them if we got them there for 6pm. There were the inevitable cock ups with us being told to go to point A when we needed to be at point B, getting to point B only to discover that some of the unloaders didn't have ID on them and couldn't enter the port (leaving Nicky to do all the work), no container had been organised (making shifting 30 toilets that much harder). We also shipped over the white poop truck (an Isuzu flat bed with a tail lift and a small pump on board) which we knew needed a new starter motor. Everything got to the dock on time, and arrived in Grand Turk the following lunchtime.

Nicky went over on Thursday with the new starter motor to fit to the truck and get these toilets into position and set up. Except the truck refused to start. He spent a very frustrating day driving around trying to find somewhere that could fix the truck...but no-one could. He commented that the island was now in a more backward and under-developed state than it had been 20 years ago when he lived there. So right now we have 30 toilets at the dock in Grand Turk, a truck that won't start and the bad news that PPC (the local power company) that were 'sponsoring' the free shipping has withdrawn their deal. So whilst the obvious solution is to bring the truck back to Provo where it would be fixed in a heartbeat, no-one knows when the next barge is leaving Grand Turk and we'd have to pay for it. What looked like the potential for us to expand the business in Grand Turk (currently without a portable toilet provider) is beginning to look like the proverbial white elephant - and an expensive one at that. The government mechanic took a look at the truck today and he couldn't figure out what was wrong with it either. Nicky is now booked to go back on Monday with Cholo to see if they (Cholo took out the old starter motor) fix it. The real worry, of course, is that in the meantime someone manages to find a means of pumping the toilets and steals the contract out from underneath us. Although with our toilets currently languishing at the dock it is all rather academic.

Does it appear to be very unsavoury to be talking about making money at a time like this? Well I guess to some extent it does. But bottom line is that we make money renting out toilets and cannot afford to let 30 of them go for free. We are certainly not looking to make a killing out of this, but whilst there are funds to set up the toilets (Rotary are paying for them) then we didn't feel bad at making them an offer. It's not as though we've not given heaps of labour and money to the relief effort as it is in terms of food, tools and a generator to folk on the island. Grand Turk is only 60 miles away and yet at times like this it may as well be the other side of the world for all the difficulty of getting there. A friend today suggested we try getting Nicky a seat on the DC3 which Missionary Flights International are running at the moment, or on the US Coast Guard helicopters, but no contacts have revealed themselves as yet.

The other devastating news this week was that Colin (he who was taken ill the night the hurricane struck) died on Tuesday night in Miami. He had pancreatic cancer which took him very quickly (barely a week from diagnosis to death) and he very sadly never made it back to the islands. Having to cope with the destruction of homes is one thing, but doing all that AND coping with the loss of the head of the family is a whole other order of magnitude. Of course, with no phone lines and no power, there are no fax machines on the islands so we had to act as the intermediary for the hospital in Miami to fax down the release papers to Provo, which Nicky took on a plane to GT, for his widow to sign, for Nicky to bring back and then fax back to Miami the following day. You tend to forget all the simple things in life that can't be done when there is no power.

Whilst Nicky was on Provo on Thursday he also fell into conversation ("why does he always fall into compersation" says Osh!) with the insurance assessors over there. Turns out that the rumour that the miserable assessors wouldn't go on account of there being no cold beer and no TV was just a vicious rumour. The reality was that there was such a huge demand for them and so few of them that people were (and still are) waiting days to see them. Anyway, these men said that the number of uninsured and dramatically under-insured on the island was staggering. Nicky's depressing assessment of the situation was that the entire place was being managed by a group of headless chickens that had no idea what to do (not dissimilar to the US after Katrina in that respect), no-one wanted to delegate (thus losing what little bit of influence and kudos they'd attained as a result of the disaster) and ultimately, the island may never recover. The notion that nothing was being done - that is, folk sitting back and waiting for Government to step in and mend their roof etc - that there was an un-urgent atmostphere about doing anything was confirmed by others that have been over there since. A Jamaican friend sagely noted that, following Hurricane Gilbert 20 years ago, some communities are still struggling to get back to where they were, and today someone noted that Grand Bahama, devastated by a hurricane some years back never recovered economically. In fact, the influx of Bahamians here was largely due to them moving south in search of employment and opportunities in the Turks.

The first cruise ship returns on 8 October. If the terminal is reasonably functioning (at the moment the artificial beach is no longer there, the pool is full of filthy water etc) the boats will come and the employment for many will return and things might just start again. But if the major cruise lines opt to avoid Grand Turk (on account of there being no 'facilities' there - and by that I mean bars, shops and a pool....these cruising types are not remotely interested in the historic sites away from the terminal) then all the other cruise lines (including the smaller 'quality' ones) will drop out too and that will be the end of Grand Turk's rise to prosperity as we know it. Sobering thoughts.

Another sobering thought is that my doctor has raised a tiny concern about Baby Turnip's development and is booking me an appointment to see a peri-natologist in Miami next week. Whilst all other indicators are bang on target, she is concerned that I am not as big as I ought to be (I had also noted that this bump didn't feel anywhere near as uncomfortable as Osh did at the same stage). There are no peri-natologists on island, and no facilities at all for premature babies. So I'm off to Miami at some point for the day - fingers crossed that this is just my doctor being (thankfully) over-cautious. Worst case scenario is that there is something wrong with the baby and I'll have to go back to the UK to have it taken out early. I'm currently 28 weeks so viability is good (if not brilliant) but the cost of doing all that in the US would be eye-watering. And of course on top of all the other worries and difficulties we have at the moment it is the sort of hiccup we don't need. But we'll soldier on as we always have! Pip Pip.